CyPreSS: Software Techniques for the Engineering of Cyber-Physical Systems
Abstract.
Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) refer to systems comprising software components, physical components and social entities which monitor, control, and coordinate processes within a physical environment. CPSs apply to a wide range of mission-critical applications that span from the intelligent management of logistics in complex supply chains, advanced manufacturing systems and smart contracts, all the way to autonomous systems, and systems that support the smart interactions between humans and machines (M2H), or between machines (M2M). It is of no surprise that over the past few years we witness an intense activity in the area of CPSs, spearheaded by countries in the European Union, United States, Japan, and China. Canada is lagging behind, despite some very notable advances in AI and Machine Learning offer new technologies for CPSs. Now, more than ever, there is an urgent need for the IT industry in Ontario to actively address the emerging demand for CPSs with state-of-the-art tools and techniques for engineering such systems, by supporting CPSs initiatives such as the Factory of the Future, and Smart Interactions.
The project lies within the intersection of Software Engineering (SE), Systems Management, and Control Theory, and aims to built upon emerging international Research and Development efforts intended to produce models, development tools and runtime platforms for CPSs. More specifically, the project aims to tackle issues in six main themes of engineering CPSs. The first theme deals with stakeholder requirements elicitation, analysis and modeling of CPSs. The second theme deals with the design of DevOps toolchains in order to support continuous development, deployment and evolution of CPSs. The third theme deals with CPS architectures (cyber, physical and social), while a fourth theme focuses on the design of run-time management and control infrastructures to address scalability, adaptivity, compliance, and intelligent behavior. The fifth theme deals with security and privacy, and the sixth one is concerned with runtime contractual compliance and data management.
The project brings together leading researchers from five Ontario Universities, experts from software and hardware companies, as well as a network of technology receptors who are pivotal in providing valuable use cases, and in adopting and testing the research results of this project. The use cases for this project aim for systems that involve collaborative agents in M2M and M2H interactions, with applications in the Energy and Transportation sectors (smart contracts, intelligent preventive maintenance and regulatory compliance).
